Archive for June, 2015

Today, extra megapixels are really just par for the course. Consumers have convinced themselves that they want those extra megapixels, so manufactures will continue to provide to them. That means that until consumers come to realize how little those megapixels actually do for the average photographer, you’re going to have to filter out all that megapixel-related marketing noise whenever you go to purchase a new camera.

So where does that leave you, the consumer, when you enter that camera shop or your local Best Buy? You need to be armed with all the right questions, otherwise you may end up making a purchasing decision that’s based on factors that really aren’t that important to you.Continue Reading »

Digital cameras do a lot of things that film cameras could never do. But in a way, film photographers had it kind of easy. There was no such thing as “file size”, because everything you shot on a roll of film was exactly the same “size” as everything else you shot on that roll of film.

Today we are blessed – or perhaps cursed – with the ability to shoot photos at any resolution and quality setting we want. But all of these choices come at a cost, and that cost is most obvious when you try to print the photos that you take with your digital camera. Let’s see why….Continue Reading »

Film photographers were so much more organized than we are. They had shoeboxes. Remember shoeboxes? When you got your photos back from the lab, you flipped through them, you gave away a few extra copies, and then you stuck them in a shoebox, promising yourself that one day real soon you would put them into a photo album.

Today’s shoebox equivalent is the hard drive. I’m very sorry to say, that just because you store your digital photos on the computer does not mean that they are more organized. If you want to be able to retrieve your digital photographs with ease, you need to have an organizing system in place. In case you don’t know where to begin, here is a short list of suggestions.Continue Reading »

No one is born knowing how to use a camera. Every single photographer you know from amateur to professional at one time picked up a DSLR (or an SLR) camera, turned it over awkwardly, looked at all those buttons and thought to himself, “How the heck do I use this thing?”

Rookie mistakes in any field are usually pretty predictable. That’s because they’re honest mistakes, and it’s pretty easy to see how the unschooled and unpracticed might end up making them. Even if you’ve come a long way since the first time you held a DSLR, it’s worth reviewing this list so you’ll know which mistakes you’ve moved past, and which ones you may still be making (don’t worry, your secret is safe with me).Continue Reading »

There are a few truly life-changing events in a person’s life, events that dwarf all of those little every day experiences. Marriage is one of them. Purchasing a home is another. And for many people, one of the most profound of those events is becoming a parent.

I’m sure you’ve shot plenty of baby photos, but what about maternity photos? They’re important too, and you need some special knowledge to do them right. Keep reading to find what you need to know.Continue Reading »

A lot of photographers just don’t like tripods. If that’s you, I can certainly sympathize. Tripods are a pain. And once you’ve got your camera and tripod firmly planted in one spot, you don’t have a lot of incentive to undo everything and then move to another spot. But despite all their drawbacks, you really do need a tripod.

Without a tripod, you’ll miss out on creative motion blur images. You’ll also have no wonderful, unique low-light photographs, no landscapes with killer clarity and depth of field, no light painting. Without a tripod, you’re limiting yourself far, far more than you are when you use it in any one location.

But not all tripods are the same. So let’s find out what features are available that might actually be of use (or not) to you, personally.Continue Reading »

I know, you spent a bundle on the latest piece of post-processing software. Your most over-used photography phrase is, “I’ll just fix it in post”.

It’s not surprising, really, and you’re not the only one. After all, post-processing has given us some really wonderful tools. We can make images sharper. We can clean up noise. We can fix underexposure and overexposure. We can adjust white balance. In a sense, we’ve kind of made things too easy on ourselves. Because that phrase “I’ll just fix it in post” is on a lot of photographers’ tongues, not just yours.Continue Reading »

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